MHS Honors Student Artistic Achievements

Mamaroneck High School hosted its annual "Celebration of the Arts" yesterday, honoring student achievement in writing, music and film production. The event, held in the library, featured several performances, presentations, and guest speakers throughout the school day.

The day began with performances by three of the school's vocal ensembles- In Treble, the Swing Choir and the Concert Choir-- each led by musical director Dina Madden. Among the songs featured were The Beatles' "In My Life," Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," and Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'."

Later, local author Todd Strasser—who has penned several books and been featured in The New Yorker, Esquire and The New York Times—spoke about his own path to literary success and provided advice for aspiring writers.

Strasser warned students that starting a career in writing is not easy, and noted students should always write about what they know. Drawing from his own experience, Strasser explained that his first book, a coming-of-age novel set on Long Island titled Angel Dust Blues, only came together after he eliminated the parts about Nazi submarine drug dealers—a topic he readily admitted to knowing little about.

Additionally, Strasser promoted his newest novel, Wish You Were Dead, which is set in Mamaroneck.

Following Strasser, Associate Principal Bassist and Creative Education Assistant of the New York Philharmonic Jon Deak spoke about his experiences with childhood and adolescent music education.

Deak first interacted with the MHS orchestra after it performed one of his compositions. He then challenged students to write their own pieces (17 were ultimately up to the task). Deak was thoroughly impressed.

"The amazing thing is how wide a range of styles we have," he said. "This is true, originality by teenagers in the Mamaroneck High School."

Following performances by the school's drum, string and wind ensembles, sophomores Rayna Wachs and Jacob Seltzer and senior John Goodman screened several video projects from the Advanced Video class, taught by Emily Dombroff. Their projects included music videos of The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye," Hall & Oates' "You Make My Dreams" and an opening sequence for the school's announcements program, MHS Info, based on the intro from NBC's 30 Rock. After each video, the students fielded questions about various technical and artistic aspects of their work.

The day concluded with an open mic poetry slam organized by the school's literary magazine, Calliope.

Yesterday was the first Artistic Achievement celebration in years—the library's remodeling held up the event for an extended period of time.

"There were so many amazing kids here doing some amazingly talented things, and not everyone was seeing it," said Kristina Pantginis, head librarian. "I figured I would try to do a program that would highlight all these students and have people come to see the performances."

"It's a joy for me because I love watching these kids perform, and I'm glad that you don't really need to go outside to get great talent," she added. "All of it is homespun; it's all here."